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Santa Barbara County observed the official beginning of high fire season this week with a freak rain—making last weekend the wettest ever recorded for the month of June—and a downtown fire that destroyed a plaster company’s warehouse and sent one person to the hospital. Also, political turmoil is growing over plans to ground the County Fire Department’s two fire-fighting helicopters in response to the county government’s $72 million budget deficit. This proposal, which goes to the supervisors next week, would save $1.2 million by eliminating funding for the two pilots and their ground crews. Whether this proposal qualifies as political brinksmanship, as many suspect, or is a sincere if desperate effort to cut costs, it would effectively gut the county’s first and fastest line of aerial defense in case a back-country blaze breaks out in Santa Barbara’s notoriously steep canyons and inaccessible terrain.

The county’s need for this protection has grown more urgent since the U.S. Forest Service shut down its air base in Santa Maria and opted to serve the Los Padres Forest with air tankers flown in from Porterville or Lancaster. Despite the Forest Service’s insistence it can get air fighters fueled, loaded with retardant, and in the air no less than four hours after an incident starts, South Coast fire chiefs are quick to point out the Forest Service has yet to meet that target. The County Sheriff’s Department has helicopters of its own and has volunteered to fill the breech. This has touched off such a nasty family feud among the public safety community that an innocuous sounding item on this week’s supervisor’s agenda—during which the Sheriff’s Department would officially accept a donation of a helicopter—was tabled and a new ad hoc helicopter subcommittee was formed. Those in the firefighting community insist neither the Sheriff’s helicopters nor their pilots are trained or equipped to handle the arduous challenges posed by back-country fire fighting.

Paul Wellman (file)

Seen from Jesusita Lane, a helicopter drops water on a patch of fire.

Adding to this brew are new proposed restrictions on how the Forest Service will fight wildfires throughout its 193-million-acre countrywide domain, hatched in response to successful litigation filed by an environmental organization contending that the 24 million gallons of fire retardant dropped every year posed an immediate threat to no less than 65 threatened or endangered species. If the new restrictions are approved—as they almost certainly will be by December 31—the pilots hired to fight fires will now soon be precluded from dropping retardant on critical habitat for these species, zones referred to as “Retardant Avoidance Areas.” Pilots are already precluded from dropping within 300 feet of any stream, river, or creek bed. In addition, the number of exceptions to these prohibitions will be reduced. Currently, pilots are allowed to drop retardant on such protected areas to protect either life or property. Under the new guidelines, they will be allowed to do so only to save life, but not property.

Tuesday night the state agency dispatched a team to the Cabrillo Arts Pavilion to conduct one of only four “listening sessions” throughout the United States to hear public reaction to these changes, brought forth as part of the “environmentally preferred alternative” in a new Environmental Impact Statement. Santa Barbara was selected for obvious reasons: five of the state’s biggest wildfires ever took place in the Los Padres National Forest. In just two years, Santa Barbara played unwilling host to the Zaca Fire, the Gap Fire, the Jesusita Fire, and the Tea Fire. Combined they torched nearly 300,000 acres and destroyed almost 300 homes. In the past 10 years, Los Padres was the site of more fire retardant drops than any forest in the country. In California, it has had more than twice as many drops—with more than twice as many gallons of retardant—than its next closest rival. Not all were delivered with pinpoint precision. During the Jesuita Fire, for example, an errant load of retardant was dumped directly on a tributary of the Maria Ygnacio Creek. Anywhere from 50-100 steelhead trout—a federally endangered species—were killed along a one-mile stretch of creek. The Forest Service describes such incidents as “misapplications,” of which they say 14 occur a year on average. Some “misapplications” can have devastating effects, like the one outside of Bend, Oregon, more than 10 years ago that killed 20,000 fish.

This incident prompted Forest Service Employees for Environmental Ethics (FREEE) to sue in federal court, demand that the Forest Service conduct a full-scale review of the impacts of retardant—a combination of water, emulsifiers, dye, and fertilizers—on the environment where it lands. The group contended that retardant was especially hard on aquatic life. But they also claimed that the retardant fertilizer changed the soil, making it much more inviting to a host of invasive nonnative species. As a result, they argued, many environmentally challenged plants found themselves further squeezed out. FREEE demanded an environmental impact report and won the first round in 2005. But the Forest Service’s response was sufficiently lackluster that FREEE sued again. A judge found the federal agency’s efforts were “incomplete, insincere, and untimely,” and ordered them back to the drawing board. It was the result of those efforts that was on display at the Arts Pavilion Tuesday night.

Despite the high stakes involved, the crowd was small—34 to 40 people—and mostly low key. Many were fire-fighting brass, retired incident commanders, or government employees. One representative from the Environmental Defense Center was on hand. An agent for the company that enjoys a monopoly on all fire retardant sales in the United States was there, too. There were only three alternatives on the table; stop dropping retardant altogether, keep with the existing program, or adopt the new restrictions. With one exception, all speakers expressed varying degrees of skepticism about placing any new environmental restrictions on pilots attempting to fight fires in the most treacherous of conditions. But as Forest Service officials repeatedly said, they were under a judge’s order to get something approved by December 31. And of the three alternatives, only one would satisfy the judge.

Comments

Carbajal, Wolf and Farr all refused to purchase additional firefighting helos after the Jesusita fire. Capps refused to ask for sufficient funds to reopen the firebase at Santa Barbara Airport. And now their enviro allies are taking away fire retardant.

I watched my house burn in the jesusita fire. I was there when the fire was less than an acre. I was there up to last minutes before my stuff burned. I watched it non stop from many different vantage points. The helicopters don't do squat! When the wind blows, everything goes.

I've been pointing out for the past four years or so, that helicopters and planes are just a part of the arsenal used in fire suppression.

Aircraft have limited and specific utility, and it is the uninformed who over-promote and demand the immediate use of these tools, or maintain a blind faith that immediate deployment of planes or helicopters is the best and only solution to protecting our wild lands.

The Jesusita fire was less than 10,000 square feet in size when it was spotted and called in. If it had been hit hard and fast within the first 10 minutes by a couple of TurboTrackers (which used to be based at Santa Barbara Airport) and 4 Bell 212 helos that fire would have been contained. Instead, Lois Capps refused to seek funding for the SBA and Santa Maria airport firebases. Only two Bell 205 helos worked that fire in the first 2 hours. By the time other air assets arrived the fire was out of control and uncontainable.

"According to the Department of Homeland Security, this grant can be used for a variety of purposes, including the purchase of equipment, firefighter health and safety programs, enhancing emergency medical services programs, and conducting fire education and prevention programs."

"bigt": I will set aside picking apart the readiness, capability, and capacity of the nifty fleet you have conjured and grant you your hypothetical conditions.

Now, how many times in a 100 attempts do you think that dream squadron could deploy, coordinate, and accurately deliver "hard and fast within the first 10 minutes," even if they knew ahead of time about the fire?

I doubt they could all be in the air within 10 minutes under perfect conditions. It's not a video game

Wow!!! Finally some smart educated people are starting to wake-up! The County Fire Dept. which has a great PR Dept. run by a $120,000 a year Capt. has fooled the public into believing that getting rid of their Air Unit is going to cause "Great loss and the loss of lives". Is pure BS! As one poster put it "Air Tractors" are much cheaper to operate and you could have more of them spread throughout the county. This new Fire Chief should be fired for his mis-leading info. to the public and flat out lying to the board of supervisors. Why do we need "Fire" helicopters 365 days a year?? Does this makes sense? No other state or federal contracts have this. Those few of you keep educating the public because Fire is empire building......

For the first 24 hours of the Jesusita fire the only retardant put on that fire was dropped from aircraft. Ground crews did not even reach the fire perimeter for 20 hours. For the first several hours ground crews just stood around trying to figure out what to do while helos and fixed wings began dropping tens of thousands of gallons of retardant (the Independent even ran a photo of "hotshot" crews standing around watching the fire while helos were dropping retardant). the only things that prevented the fire from ripping right down Mission Canyon were constant air drops and luck.

On May 5, 2009 both the Santa Maria and Santa Barbara airport firebases were closed. This was a direct result of Lois Capp's failure to obtain funding for those bases. If those airbases had been opened and properly equipped on that day the Jesusita Fire would have been contained within an hour.

Maybe I could say that if we didn't have more tax cuts, maybe we wouldn't be in this mess. Maybe the rich and wealthy whose homes are most at risk should pay more taxes for these kinds of services. Just saying. Maybe I could blame Lois Capps for the potholes on my street, I dunno. Maybe she failed at obtaining funds for bases in our own country. We sure do have a lot of them in other countries.

bigt, sadly uninformed. I saw how quickly they responded, I was impressed. I opened the gates to let them across our property to get to the fire site. Ground crews were there very fast, but they do have to make a plan of attack and be safe. I watched from my atv, the helicopter was there very quickly also. The water drops from the helicopter mostly blew around in the wind. While I don't recommend it, it's kind of like peeing in a big campfire, makes a lot steam, but does little to slow a big fire, especially when the humidity is 10% and the wind is gusting to 60. The next day I watched the hand crews get a good line on it, and the helicopters were going non stop, then the afternoon winds started to howl again. Everything they had gained was lost in a matter of a half hour, completely out of control in came ripping back down the hill, and bye bye to all my belongings... Helicopters may save a house or two, but they don't do much to control a wind driven beast.

"Those in the firefighting community insist neither the Sheriff’s helicopters nor their pilots are trained or equipped to handle the arduous challenges posed by back-country fire fighting."Having witnessed first-hand the County Choppers in June 2010,I vehemently disagree. They were first to respond(in about 10 minutes) to a small grass fire that could have easily expanded to something much larger in Refugio Canyon. The pilots filled/dropped/repeated with about a 5 minute cycle and slowed down the fire's progress until ground crews & large air tankers could respond. The chopper pilots' skill (and bravery) was amazing to watch, and I hate to think what could have happened with this fire if they had not been available.

Little can be done in situations like the Tea Fire, when winds of 70 miles per hour are fanning the flames from the very start and all vegetation is bone dry in the fall. The Jesusita Fire was different. It happened in early May, and for the first 28 hours the weather was calm, with little to no wind and wet fuel. The fire did not start growing until the weather changed, something that was in the NOAA forecast. Maybe I don't know enough to understand this, but it seems to me that a timely response could have prevented the Jesusita Fire from expanding and destroying homes. A look at the weather forecast showed that there was about a 24 hour window of opportunity to extinguish the flames before onshore winds began to blow the fire into neighborhoods. The fire did not grow beyond 500 acres for the first day, but the air resources did not show up in time, and the final cost ended up a lot higher as a result.

An Air Tractor is a make of aircraft, used mostly in cropdusting. It is a single engine airplane. A Turbo Tracker is a twin engine aircraft originally built by Grumman Aircraft in the 50's and deployed by the U.S Navy as sub hunters. The aircraft was called the S2 Tracker and was powered by Wright R1820-82 recipocating (piston) engines. After they were retired by the Navy many were put into service as firebombers. Many of those Trackers were later upgraded to turbine engines, thus the name Turbo Tracker. The photo that accompanied this story is of a Turbo Tracker.

To those who do not believe that having air resources to fight fires is a big waste of money, you're wrong. Can any of you please tell me how a ground crew is going to cut a break on a 60% grade? Also, while water may tend to disperse more when dropped directly on a fire, retardant does not. And, those 212's, 412's and various other helicopters are used for more than just water drops. They are invaluable in getting crews into hot spots and inaccessable areas in a very short time, and equally as important, getting crews out of an area when they are in danger of being overrun, or their route of escape has been blocked.